NIEPA Trains Members of Staff on “Information Protection in a Social Engineered World”.

Published On - July 15, 2019

NIEPA

In a bid to combat the effect of information insecurity and cyber fraud in the society, the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration under the able leadership of her Director General, Prof. Lilian Salami organized a lecture for members of the institute community titled “Information Protection in a Social Engineered World”.

In her opening remark, the Head of ICT Department, Mrs Lydia Ogunsola said “The way to avert becoming a prey is to be conscious of the mode of operation of social engineers or scammers and the different shades of scam”

The resource person for the training, Engr. Pius Odeluga of ICT Department defined social engineering as “The practice of deceiving, either in person, over the phone, or using a computer, with the express intent of breaching some level of security either personal or professional”.

He also gave a lucid explanation of several techniques of Social Engineering attackers among which are Shoulder Surfing, Dumpster Diving, Role playing, Deployment of Trojan horses, Phishing and Baiting. Engr. Odeluga also gave some control measures to be done to reduce the success of Social Engineering attacks. According to him “Social engineering attacks are but the newest iteration in a long history of confidence schemes, and the surest means of limiting their success is knowledge. By keeping employees informed, one can prevent these attacks”

The Director General, represented by Dr Adebola Agbaje said “It is an illusion for anyone to believe that it is impossible to fall victim of fraud, as scammers everywhere are incredibly deceptive and can attack even the most intelligent amongst us”.

The event also featured personal experiences from several participants. The training was really an eye opener as participants were very appreciative that a training of such necessity was being organized.